Black Marrows are named for their dark colored hides which are encased in a distinct exoskeleton. Their skull and the top edges of their spine push out from under the skin as they age. As such, their young need excessive amounts of calcium for this armor to develop. The older a Black Marrow dragon is, the more skeletal their appearance. They often use their skeletal looks to lure in foolish scavengers or terrify predators. These vicious dragons love nothing more than to crack open bones with their stony beaks and eat the marrow inside. Voracious scavengers, Black Marrows will swarm and devour corpses both old and fresh, sometimes even dragging larger finds to the water to allow them to “ripen.” Despite their dreadful demeanour and often horrid stench, Black Marrows are devoted mates and parents.

Dragons are highly-intelligent reptilian creatures that—from a human perspective, at least—appear to live forever. Many different varieties of dragon exist, each with their own unique qualities, habitats, and behavior. Adolescence in dragons is usually marked by the growth of a hatchling’s wings, although not all breeds of dragons grow wings and some breeds have other traits that indicate the beginning of maturation. In Galsreim, dragons and humans coexist peacefully.

As a hatchling, Mortac was brave and outgoing. But he got lost one day while exploring the territory surrounding the cave with some denmates. When he came back he had grown into a handsome young Black Marrow, but there was something not quite right about him. He had a crazed look in his eye and kept muttering random strings of words, none of which made any sense. He became emotional and began to scream and claw at the stone in his sleep, sometimes crying out, "The horns! The Horns!" No one knows what he saw that traumatized him badly enough to drive him to insanity. Only Mortica can get him to relax enough to talk, but even then it's only jibberish or some long tirade about horrible horns.